[Music] My name is Hooey.

I braid leather.

It's over 50 years I've been doing what I'm doing.

It, it took me a long time to get competent at it, and then it took even longer than that to get to the level I'm happy with.

I can't keep up with the demand during the busy season.

I went completely traditional.

In the 1800s that's what they had to work with.

And this is what they did.

The hat band kept the hat in shape.

Part of what makes my work a little different, I've put some nautical work into leather work.

The braided knots, the pineapple knot, that's my signature right there.

Who I sell to people that take pride in their work and hand-build a hat.

They build the hat to fit your head.

And somebody that's going to go through that, they're not going to want a second-class hatband.

Kangaroo leather happens to be the best for braiding purposes.

Nothing else even comes close.

That kangaroo leather will retain more strength and last longer than any other leather out there.

It's circle-cut.

You don't just cut strips.

The advantage to this, you can get long lengths.

If you were to cut this way, you would get, uh, 14-15 inches.

If you string-cut an entire hide could get over 200 feet in one single string.

Now we move over to phase two.

I whittle it down.

Tiny fractions of an inch to give me the perfect dimensions that I'm after.

Okay, now I measure this.

128th of an inch is what I've taken off.

That's a shaving.

We’re going to recut the edges and put a bevel into the edges.

It allows your braid to lay in instead of lay on.

And this starts the actual braiding.

Here’s where the beveling shows.

It takes the edge off everything.

My pineapple knot is what I enjoy the most.

Very few people tie those anymore.

Very few people know how to tie those anymore.

It's a interwoven knot.

You start out with a knot that's called a Turk's head.

It's tied very loosely and put in place.

And then the tightening process.

When you tighten a Turk’s head, it's not like a boot lace.

You don't just pull the ends and expect it to tighten.

You take a little bit of slack out.

You form your knots.

You don't just tighten them.

And then you weave another Turk's Head into that first Turk’s Head.

If you tuck it wrong in any place along the way, nothing else will come out right And I think it's a beautiful knot.

Okay.

At this point, it's completed.

And you can adjust it to a perfect fit for just about any hat made.

It's a culture, a tradition.

You go in any store now, everything you buy was made by a machine.

Everything is mass-produced and disposable.

When they buy something of mine, it's made to last.

It's made the traditional way and it's made with care.

And I take pride in my work Everybody can do something well in life.

Something makes you happy.

And I was lucky.

A long time ago I knew what made me happy and I could do well.

And I'm still doing it.